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ORATION 



BEP0E3 TKK 



RE-UNION SOCIETY 



OF 



VERMONT OFFICERS, 



m THE 



REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, MONTPELIER, VT., 

November 4, 1869. 

By Gen. WILLIAM W. GROUT, 

BARTON, VT. 



EUTL\ND: 

TUTTLE & CO., PRINTERS. 

1869. 

u.«b.(l.. 



Joint Resolution 'providing for the "printing of Gen. William W. 
Grout's oration before the He-union Society of Vermont Officers. 

Whereas, The oration of Gen. William W. Grout, delivered 
before the Re-union Society of Vermont Officers during the present 
session, would be, if preserved, a valuable acquisition to the history 
and literature of the State ; therefore *" 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That the Clerk 
of the House and Secretary of the Senate be., and are hereby directed 
to procure the printing of one thousand copies thereof, for the use of 
the General Assembly. 

G. W. GRANDEY, 

Speaker of the House of Rep. 
GEO. N, DALE, 

President pro teni of the Senate, 



MILITARY RECORD OF VERMONT. 



Mr. President and Comrades, and Ladies and Gentle- 
men: 

Vermont, the first-born into the family of States, 
achieved her existence through the military prowess of 
her people. She was the legitimate child of war. This 
was true, not only of her population, at the time of her 
admission into the Union, but was equally true of her 
territory, which, from time immemorial, seems to have 
been set apart as a species of martial arena dedicated to 
hostile expeditions and enterprises. The aboriginal tribes 
even were wont to regard it as neutral ground. The 
fierce Pequots upon the south, the warlike Iroquois on 
the west, and the blood-thirsty Cossucks and wild tribes 
of St. Francis on the north and north-east, had, for how 
many centuries, no tongue or pen can tell, looked upon 
these Green Mountains as a sort of charmed yet fated spot; 
common, as a hunting and battle ground, to all, but safe 
as a home for none. Hence upon the exploration of this 
part of the continent, the territory of Vermont, except a 
narrow strip along Lake Champlain, was found uninhab- 
ited by human kind. Constantly traversed by the sur- 
rounding tribes in their hostile expeditions against each 
other, it must have been the theatre of the most appalling 
Indian conflicts — and had come to be regarded, as is the 
brief space between contending armies, daugerous ground; 



6 

nor was this condition improved during the colonial period, 
but much the same state of things was continued. 

In the early dawn of the seventeenth century, the spirit 
of adventure and discovery being at its height in Europe, 
Sir Jacques Cartier, the celebrated French navigator of 
St. Malo, discovered Canada and the St. Lawrence ; and 
straightway the French crown, under the law of nations, 
laid claim to all that vast territory drained by the St. 
Lawrence and its tributaries, including, of course, the 
great chain of lakes. Later, the pious Marquette, to 
whom, equally with Champlain, " the salvation of one 
soul was of more consequence th^n the conquest of an 
empire," bore the cross of the Jesuit fathers westward 
even to the banks of the Mississippi, the mouths of which 
were afterwards discovered by LaSalle, another French- 
man, which, under the same law, gave the great valley 
to the French also. Meantime the English had taken 
possession of the entire A tlantic seaboard from Maine to 
Georgia, and had pushed their settlements northward into 
the interior towards Vermont, as far as Greenfield. With 
the French thus upon the north and the English upon 
the south, and they old-time enemies, and not only at war 
at home, but from the very first fiercely contending for 
the supremacy here in the new world, the territory of 
Vermont during that series of Indian and colonial wars 
which run through nearly a century and a half, was still 
dangerous grouni; the pathway of advancing and retreat- 
ing armies, and the lurking place of their savage allies. 
It was still uninhabited. No set of men had then been 
found brave enough to undertake the work of wresting 
from nature's grasp these rugged hillsides and mountain 
slopes; and it was not until 1759, when, in that decisive 
*• contest for empire " on this continent, before the walls 



t 

cf Quebec, between Wolfe and Montcalm, Englard was 
victorious; and the treaty of Paris followed, ceding 
Canada to Great Britain, that the territory of Vermont 
was relieved of these dire influences of war and her colo- 
nization undertaken ; chiefly by bold adventurers, who 
had taken note of the capabilities of her soil and climate 
in their marches and countermarclies across her territory, 
during the wars that had preceded. 

These men, under grants from a Ivoyal Governor, had 
carved out for themselves homes in this mountain wilder- 
ness, and had here set up in peace their Lares and Penates. 
Suddenly, hov/ever, this territory, which no one during 
the centuries back, not even the Indian tribes had dared 
to own, so excited t'le cupidi;./ c" ouitciders, that it was 
deemed common prey for the surrounding colonies, and 
was claimed in part by New Hampshire and BlaGsachu- 
setts, and wholly by New York. And, as if this region, 
so long shunned by man and left to the wild antics of 
war, would not, without strife, be subject to civilization, 
these claims, which as all know were resisted with spirit 
by the brave men whose firesides were at stake, culminated 
in a series of disputes characterized hy violence and 
bloodshed — and this brings me to say, that for more than 
a quarter of a century before the admission of Vermont 
into the Union, her people held the attitude of armed 
resistance to the encroachments of an unwarrantable 
jurisdiction. 

When the colonists first remonstrated and then revolted 
against the unjust exactions of England, it was no new 
subject to the hardy independent pioneers upon the New 
Hampshire grants. They had before that petitioned the 
crown and remonstrated with grasping governors in vain 



8 

and had already drawn the sword, and for the mainten- 
ance of their rights, had, through their chosen leader, 
declared themselves " ready to retire to the caves of the 
mountains and wage an eternal warfare against human 
nature." The spirit of resistance to the mother country 
which had been ^' aroused in Massachusetts by that sanest 
of madman James Otis; in Virginia, by that bold and firey 
patriot Patrick Henry, and in South Carolina by the lofty, 
fearless and eloquent Gadsden," was more than answered 
in Vermont by the record then already made, by the 
invincible Allen and his brave Green Mountain boys, 
against the New York Sheriffs and Surveyors, as well as 
against Col. Reid's tenants and the Durhamites. 

The very genius of liberty itself seems to have been 
derived by these men from the free mountain air, ^hich 
they breathe, and from the wild and rugged surroundings 
of nature, in the midst of which, they dwelt. They were 
from the very first of that class of devout disciples of 
liberty, whose patriotism took a practical turn and whose 
faith in bayonets and bullets was more than orthodox. 
Hence, when the colonists raised the continental standard 
and the tide of war, first under Carleton, and then under 
Burgoyne, swept up from the St. Lawrence and overrun 
our northern border, the Green Mountain boys, forgetting 
for the time all minor wrongs, promptly changed front 
and gave battle to the common enemy ; and as the result 
Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Bennington were among 
the trophies of Vermont valor in the ^rst war of the 
Republic. 

In 1812, Vermont, not stopping to consult the oracle 
of party spirit, but answering the puerile order of a 
misguided executive, with the same patriotic formula that 
Epaminondas did his superstitious monitors of old, again. 



" Her sword bravelv dra-ws, 

Asking no omen but her country's cause." 

Asking not even the pardon of an offended Governor and 
commander-in-chief in and over the State. In that crisis, 
to the credit of Vermont, her sons, with something still of 
the spirit of Allen and Warner, disregarded that ill-timed 
proclamation, •• to forthwith return to the respective 
places of their usual residence within the State," and 
replied in that remarkable language: '-We shall not 
obey your Excellency's order for returning ; and would 
inform you that an order or invitation to desert the 
standard of our country will yiever be obeyed by us, 
although it proceeds from the Governor and captain 
general of Vermont." 

Thus, in 1812, did Vermont boys aptly meet manifesto 
with manifesto, and in observance of the only law for the 
true soldier marched to the sound of the enemies' guns 
at Plattsburgh ; and, after the brisk little cotillon on 
that bright September morning, Sir George Provost, 
deeming '' discretion the better part of valor," under cover 
of the following night hastily packed his kit, and with 
his British regulars, like the Arabs, 

'• Folded his tents 

And silently stole away." 

Thus did Vermont soldiers, in spite of an unwilling 
Executive, fight their way upon the record into the second 
war of the Republic ; and afforded our gallant little State 
the proud distinction of having furnished a large part 
of that raw militia, before which, a superior number even, 
of veteran troops, trained to war under the Duke of 
Wellington, had hastily retreated. Glory enough, sure, 
for Vermont in that war. 

In the slight skirmish with Mexico, the enlightened 
public sentiment of Vermont; already well educated in the 
2 



10 

school of equal rights, could feel no special pleasure in 
responding to a call from the constituted authorities for 
troops. Our people looked upon the war as waged for 
the extension of human slavery, and the opening up of 
new marts for the trade in human blood ; against which 
every noble impulse of the Vermont heart revolted. 
Nevertheless war had been declared, the flag of our 
country had been unfurled and the honor of the nation 
was at stake. Vermonters saw this, and could not 
suppress the feeling, that the war, after declaration, was 
their war ; the flag when unfurled was their flag, and the 
honor that was at stake was their honor. Neither could 
they consent that the record of the State, so brilliant in 
previous wars, then in their keeping, should sufler stain 
or blemish through their defection. Perhaps they had 
in mind the proud position accorded their State in the 
geography of their school boy days ; which, while it made 
New Hampshire famous for her mountain scenery, Maine 
for her lumber, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut for their manufactures, said of Vermont that she 
was " celebrated for the part taken by the Green 
Mountain boys in the war for independence." However 
this may be, she at least did her duty. She voted men 
and money for the war ; she filled her quota from the 
bravest of her sons, but few of whom lived to return to 
the State. Among the number thus laid a sacrifice upon 
her country's altar was the gifted, lamented Ransom. 

Such, in brief outline, is the military history of Vermont 
previous to the late slaveholders' rebellion ; when, of a 
sudden, with hardly a note of warning, the glare of battle 
lit up Sumter's walls. Instantly, as from profound 
sleep, the nation was aroused from the lethargic r^^pose 
of a long peace ; the enervating influences of which had, 



11 

in Vermont, disarmed and disbanded her entire militia, 
save a few independent companies ; in which as the type 
of the Vermont soldier, to slightly amend the great Poet, 
" the native hue " of Vermont's early resolution " was 
seemingly sicklied o'er with the pale cast " of home guard 
effeminacy. Whether really so or not, let the bloody 
record of the 34,000 men who went out from Vermont, 
leaving home and its endearments, friends and their 
society, and voluntarily endured the ennui of the camp, 
the fatigue of the march, the loneliness of the solitary 
midnight watch, the chill of the bivouac, the disease and 
death of the hospital, and all the indiscribable horrors of 
the battlefield make answer — yes, let that record, so 
replete with glory, make answer. But here I shrink from 
the task before me. How shall I in fitting words pass in 
review the heroism, the endurance, the sufferings, the 
gallantry and indomitable bravery of those men % How, 
also, suitably portray the sacrifices, the heart-longings, 
the mental struggles, the keen anguish, the deep sorrow, 
the tears and the prayers of Vermont homes, during those 
four eventful years, which, though still fresh in the 
memory of all, yet already seem like a dream or a tale that 
is told. 

I shall not undertake to give a detailed account of the 
different Vermont organizations, nor of the special claims 
of each to honorable mention. This field has been already 
fully canvassed in previous addresses before you — and^I 
shall content myself in the brief space to which, by the 
proprieties of the occasion, I am limited, with some hasty 
allusions to those crises of the struggle in which Vermont 
troops participated. But first, a word about the character 
of that struggle. 

In lamenting the death of those twin patriots of the 



12 

Revolution, Adams and Jefferson, ( which it will be 
remembered occurred on the fifteenth anniversary of our 
independence,) Webster said : " No age of the world will 
ever come in which the American revolution will appear 
less than it really is ; one of the greatest events in human 
history. No age will ever come in which it will cease to 
be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, 
a great advance, not only in American affairs but in 
human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 1776." The 
cardinal truth which has made that day immortal, (but 
which, from some of his after utterances, it would seem 
Mr. Webster must have forgotten,) was that " all men 
are created equal." * 

That was the proposition that echoed round the world 
with such alarming emphasis, shaking thrones, and 
carrying consternjition and dismay to titled dignitaries 
and highborn aristocrats everywhere. What else could 
it have been ? Certainly not a mere declaration of inde- 
pendence by the colonies from home rule, for that was no 
new thing in history. Since the quarrel between the 
herdmen of Lot and Abraham and the division of the 
world which followed, there is hardly a chapter in human 
affairs, either sacred or profane, in which man is not 
found constantly setting up for himself But never 
before was the equality of man declared. This alone 
lifted the declaration above the common level of every-day 
philosophy, and must have been the " mighty step " 
alluded to by the great statesman. And it was truly a 
" mighty step " for any set of men to assert as one of the 
fundamental principles of government, that " all men are 
created equal." The poor equal to the rich ; the weak 
equal to the strong ; the common people equal to the 
nobility ; even the beggar in rags equal to the king in 



13 

courtly apparel, who the world had been taught ruled 
by divine right. All who bore God's image " created 
equal " before the law. Equal in those inalienable rights, 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yes, all created 
equal heirs of liberty. So said the declaration. As an 
abstract proposition it was true, but in point of fact it 
was a splendid lie. The millions of human beings held 
IQ the galling fetters of a worse than Egyptian bondage, 
pronounced it false. It was simply a declaration, such 
as lawyers make, which, as every one knows, without 
proof, goes for nothing. The fathers did not supply the 
proof in support of this bold allegation. Ihey attended 
only to the '■'• law side " of the case ; and when they closed 
the testimony on that point with Cornwallis, at Yorktowu, 
supposed they had made good in all essentials their 
declaration and were entitled to judgment in chief. This 
was a great mistake. All was quiet, however, for a little 
time, but soon difficulties arose. The silver-tongued 
Clay suggested compromise, and 36° 30' was agreed 
upon as a substitute for the declaration. Only think of 
it, north of that imaginary line it was agreed " all men 
were born free and equal." South, some to freedom, and 
alas ! some to slavery. The higher law-men cried sin 
and invoked the judgment of God. The slaveholder, girt 
about with cotton, and waxed strong and insolent, very 
soon snapped his lingers at the line 36° 30 ^ and through 
a truckling judiciary tacked on Dred Scott as an amend- 
ment ; which made the declaration read, " the negro has 
no rights which the white man is bound to respect." 
Meantime public opinion throughout the civilized world, 
always a little cynical, and not without something of 
justice, towards what it had termed the hollow preten- 
sions of this country to liberty, said that judgment had 



14 

already been too long suspended ; that the American 
people hid utterly failed in their declaration, and ought 
to have suffered non-suit and been turned out of court 
long before. Such was the situttion when, in 1860, the 
people, with conscience and pride both stinging to the 
quick, by solemn verdict declared, in the election of 
Abraham Lincoln, that no more free territory should be 
passed over to slavery. Slavery defiantly answered, 
vested rights, the divine sanction and secession, and 
appealed to arms. Thus came up to the last tribunal of 
earthly resort, the arbitrament of the sword, the " equity 
side " of this great question in the declaration, which for 
more than fifty years had shook the fabric of this govern- 
ment to its very base ; and which, before it was finally 
settlcil at Appomattox, invoked the largest chancery 
powers of the great heart of a great man, and taxed to the 
utmost the physical resources, the patience, the tenacity 
and the courage of the Ameiican people. It was sought 
for a time to carry on the war constitutionally ; for the 
preservation of the Union alone, wholly ignoring the 
declaration ; but, like the ghost of the murdered Banquo, 
this g eat question would not " down ;" not even at the 
bidding of senates, and cabinets, and commanders. It 
shook the " gory locks " of 4,' 100,000 slaves in the face of 
Abraham Lincoln, and called the great chancellor himself 
to witness that he '' made of one blood all the nations of 
men." Right at last prevailed, and the proclamation 
which followed, striking off the shackles of the enslaved, 
returned to first principles, reiteratt^d and made practical 
the truth in the declaration that " all men are created 
equal ;" straightway the constitution, by amendment, was 
made to conform therewith, and suddenly, as light after an 



15 

eclipse, England's boast, through her gifted Mansfield, 
became our boast. 

" Slave-* cannot breathe in our land, if th^•ir lungs 
Ile<'eive our air, that m'ment tliey are free." 

Such was the character of the struggle from the 
Vermont standpoint. Our p' ople from the first looked 
upon the contest as one of ideas and principles, and as 
but the closing out of the Revolution of 'T6, in which the 
fathers but half did the work ; making it a revolution 
not merely in the external forms of administration, but 
in the great principles which underlie the very foundation 
of government itself And such has been the constancy 
of Vermont to these principles of liberty and equality, 
ever since she opened the revolution on the 14th of March, 
1775, by breaking up the Royal Court at Westminster, 
(which, by the way, Massachusetts never could understand, 
was before the affair at Lexington in the April after,) and 
such her devotion thereto that for years she has been 
pointed to as " the star that never sets " As an incidental 
outcropping of these principles, her judiciary long since 
decided, on requisition for the return of a fugitive from 
slavery, that before a Vermont court, nothing &hort of a 
bill of sale from God himself would give man title to his 
fellow man. 

Imbued with such sentiments, and signalized with such 
a birth and early history as we have seen, and crowned 
too with such heroism in former wars ; who need inquire, 
what of Vermont during that struggle 1 vvho could 
doubt that Vermont would thiow her whole soul into the 
conflict 1 Who could doubt that when the clarion of war 
should sound, Vermont would be ready for the fray ? 

To prove this, need I recount how from hillside and 
valley, and mountain fastness Vermnnters rallied at the 
call — how the farmer left his plow, Putnam like, to rust 



16 

ia the furrow ; how from every department of industry in 
the State, and from every walk in social life ; how from 
the cottage and the villa men came forth with the blessing 
of mother and sister, of wife and lover, the fair ones ever 
emulating the lofty example of the revolutionary matrons, 
who '' took down from its hanging place on the wall the 
trusty firelock, and handing it to husband, brother, or 
son, said, go and in God's name strike for liberty." Need 
I follow these men to the field, and remind you that 
Vermont, with her armor on, was in the first battle of the 
war ; and how, ever after, wherever Vermont troops were 
stationed, whether in the department of the gulf, beneath 
a burning sun, in the midst of malaria and fever, or with 
the oft-beaten but never defeated Army of the Potomac, 
through the blood and carnage of her forty battles ; 
whether in the valley under Sheridan, or at Port Hudson 
under Banks ; whether in camp or on the march ; whether 
giving or receiving battle ; how everywhere, at all times 
and under all circumstances, Vermont soldiers did their 
duty, and preserved unsullied the ancient honor of the 
State ? Need I recite the deeds of these brave men upon 
the Peninsula, at Antietam, Fredericksburgh, the Wil- 
derness, where the " old brigade," through a terrible 
slaughter which cost more than a thousand men, saved 
the 2d Corps from capture, and the left wing of the army 
from ruin ; Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the final 
conflict which drove the enemy from their entrenchments 
in front of Ptichmond 1 Need I follow Early in that 
stealthy but rapid march on Washington in July, 1864, 
by which he expected to surprise and capture the capitol, 
but how he found the 6th Corps, " with Vermonters 
ahead and the column well closed up," only twentj-four 
hours from Lee's front at Petersburgh, 150 miles away, 



17 

on the ground, disputing his passage into the city ; and 
how foiled, the rebel general sulkily withdrew to the 
valley, and was afterwards slightly hurried at Winchester 
and Cedar Creek; and how, uncivil though it was, the 
Vermonters are said to have had a hand in the hurrying 1 
Need I more than name to Vermont soldiers Gettys- 
burgh, where for three days everything hung trembling 
in the balance ? The importance of that battle in both a 
military and political point of view, however much 
augmented, can never be exaggerated. Lee, flushed with 
his signal victory over Hooker at Chancellorsville, had 
boldly taken up his line of march for the great centers 
of wealth and population in the free States, and proposed, 
by giving the North a taste of war, to conquer a peace on 
Northern soil. The political horoscope was deemed 
favorable for this coup de main. The anti-war party was 
everywhere active. Many openly, and more covertly 
were demanding peace and denouncing the war as a 
failure. The mob in New York had already organized 
in resistance of the draft, and were awaiting the 
arrival of their brethren from Lee's army, then in 
the heart of Pennsylvania, The military situation, too, 
was most dismal ; the Army of the Potomac beaten at 
Bull Run, driven from the Peninsula, fooled at Antietam, 
and again badly beaten at Fredericksburgh and Chan- 
cellorsville, in which two last battles there was an aggre- 
gate loss of more than 30,000 men, and not an inch of 
ground gained ; had, sober, but undismayed, followed Lee 
into Pennsylvania and were sullenly hanging upon his 
rear and flank, covering Washington and Baltimore. In 
no other quarter was the sky more propitious. Along 
the coast our armies were at a stand-still; Milroy had 
been overwhelmed at Winchester. Grant, then but a 
8 



18 

major general and in the infancy of that career which has 
since rivalled the fame of the brilliant Duke of Marlbor- 
ough, who, history says, never besieged a city he did not 
capture nor fought a battle he did not win, still stood 
before the frowning entrenchments of Vicksburgh. 
Though himself confident, the country doubted. Banks, 
in the heart of a hostile region remote from his base, was 
confronted by a force superior to his own, and could only 
await events in other quarters. Such was the political 
and military situation when, on the 1st of July, 1863, 
Lee, deeming his battalions invincible, resolved to wipe 
out the Army of the Potomac, the only hindrance to his 
splendid schemes, and suddenly turning, fell like a thun- 
derbolt upon the 1st Corps, under Reynolds, at Gettys- 
burgh. This was a signal for the concentration of the 
Army of the Potomac ; and the gallant Sickles, who had 
positive orders to hold Emmitsburgh "at all hazards," 
and be ready to concentrate on Pipe Creek, a line fifteen 
miles to the rear, at neither of which places was there any 
enemy nor anything to do, promptly pushed his corps in 
the direction of the fighting, and reached the field in season 
to save the remnant of the 1st Corps from utter annihila- 
tion, and the 11th Corps the necessity of further "tall 
running " for that day at least. About the same time the 
2d Vermont Brigade, under our own Stannard, took up 
its place in the thinned ranks of the 1st Corps. The 
darkness which closed in upon the disasters of that day 
was not more oppressive than the gloomy forbodings 
which filled the hearts of the American people. The 
fragment of the army then in line also shared, in a measure, 
those forbodings. The 10,000 killed, wounded and 
missing in that first day's work was fully one-eighth of 
Meadp's entire force, only about one-third of which then 



19 

confronted the enemy. The whereabouts of the rest of 
the army, with its commander, was unknown, at least to 
the men and subordinate officers. Unless it came up, the 
second day could be but a repetition of the first. 

Welcome disturbances to the weary sleepers that night 
were the short, sharp commands, " halt," '' front," " right " 
or " left dress," as the case might be, which commands 
run through much of the night and intervals of the next 
day until about 4 p. m., when, by a forced march of 36 
miles, the 6th Corps, " Sedgewick's gamecocks," '* with 
the Vermonters still ahead," wheeled into line and the 
Army of the Potomac was ready for battle ; in fact, then 
more than an hour briskly engaged. And here, in passing, 
a word about the accidental manner in which it became 
engaged, as at least new to some. 

Meade reached the field during the night after the first 
day's fighting, and in the morning overlooked the situation 
and was dissatisfied. He thought Pipe Creek a better 
place. Sickles had the day before sent word to Meade 
that he had gone to the relief of Howard at Gettysburgh, 
and suggested the propriety of concentrating at that point. 
Thus the responsibility of that selection was largely upon 
him, and with true manliness, himself took the only weak 
place in what must be conceded was a naturally strong 
line for a defensive battle ; and it should be remembered 
that we were then on the defensive. Under these circum- 
stances Sickles, perhaps made a little anxious by the 
adverse judgment of Meade, and because, too, of the 
exposure of his position, thought to improve it by occu- 
pying a ridge in his front and moved out for that purpose. 
But the practiced eye of Lee it seems had caught this same 
ridge or threatening round-top hill on our left, which in 
turn threatened the whole federal position; and had 



20 

ordered Longstreet to take possession of it which he was 
then in the act of doing. Thus in manceuvering for the 
crest of this ridge, Sickles, with his corps and the whole 
left wing of the army, hecame unexpectedly engaged, to 
the great chagrin of Meade, who was still intent upon 
falling back to his favorite position near Taneytown. 
Some have spoken of this step on the part of Sickles as 
unfortunate. In my judgment history will record it 
otherwise. It is not my purpose, however, on this occa- 
sion to defend it ; my only object is to show how that 
step precipitated the engagement, and prevented the 
possible retreat of the army to Pipe Creek. 

"A grain of dust, 
Soiling our cup, will make our senses reject, 
Fastidiously, the draft we did thirst for; 
A rusty nail placed near the faithful compass, 
Will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy." 

That movement of Sickles was the " rusty nail " which 
drew to " wreck the argosy " of the rebellion. Only for 
that, the battle of Gettysburgh might never have been 
fought, for at that very moment Meade was in council 
with his corps commanders, on the question of falling 
back ; to which Sickles, though summoned, had not 
reported, being busy with his change of position. A 
second order, however, of a peremptory character, brought 
him to headquarters, but he did not dismount. His corps 
was already fiercely attacked in front and flank by Long- 
street, which at once broke up the council and turned 
attention to business. Thus was inaugurated the heavy 
fighting of this the great pivotal battle of the war; and 
for two days the rebel horde surged against the iron wall 
of the Army of the Potomac in vain. For two days 
anxiety and suspense were depicted on every countenance 
in the land. Should the Army of the Potomac give way, 
then all was lost. For two days the heart of the great 



21 

loyal North stood still. -All hearts were turned to 
Gettysburgh. The Vermont heart, too, was turned to 
Gettysburgh. She was represented on that field by two 
brigades of infantry and her regiment of cavalry, and 
they were not idle. Time, however, forbids a detailed 
statement of the gallantry of each organization ; besides 
the records which each there made are known to all ; so, 
too, is the honor and glory which Vermont there won, in 
giving the finishing stroke to the victory known to all. 
All know how, after two days stubborn fighting, during 
which charge after charge in solid column had been 
made upon our lines, 15,000 men, the flower of the Army 
of Northern Virginia, until then held in reserve, were 
massed for one Hnal desperate assault ; and how that 
assault, that last terrible charge of Picket's division, the 
topmost wave of that bloody struggle, the topmost wave 
of the rebellion, came surging up to the south of Cemetery 
Hill, and broke harmlessly at the feet of Vermont troops ; 
on whose stern countenances was written, with something' 
of Divine illumination, " Hitherto shalt thou come but 
no farther ; and here shalt thy proud wave be staid," and 
Gettysburgh was won. Where, according to the felicitous 
expression of one* of your number, " the rebellion touched 
high-water mark ;" even after which, according to the 
eloquence of another,f "the wave was refluent." It 
remains only to be observed that the exact spot, where 
the rebellion " touched high-water mark," was the imme- 
diate front of Stannard's brigade of Green Mountain boys. 
This is not mere assertion — there is the best of authority 
for it. Gen. Doubleday, who commanded the 1st Corps 
on that day, testifying before the committee on the 
conduct of the war, says : " The prisoners taken stated 



*Col, G. G. Benediol. fCol. W. G. Veazey. 



22 

that what ruined them was Stannard's brigade on their 
flank ; and that they drew off all in a huddle to get away 
from it." Bat it will be remembered that the Vermonters 
did not let them get away, but captured prisoners largely 
in excess of their own numbers, including two regimental 
colors and a battle flag. 

But the day was won, and the country breathed freer. 
Next day, July 4th, Pemberton, apprehensive that Grant 
might be inclined to celebrate a little on his account, 
surrendered Vicksburgh. Port Hudson fell as ripe fruit 
— Lee, lost no time in seeking the south bank of the 
Potomac and, suddenly, the whole situation was changed. 
Though much heavy fighting, really the heaviest of the 
war remained to be done, yet, the rebellion had received 
its death blow, and was everywhere on the wane. The 
Mississippi was opened and its entire length patroled by 
our gun-boats. Our navy along the coast took new 
courage, and added new vigilance to the blockade. The 
Army of the Potomac, forgot its early lessons of how to 
retreat in good order, and ever after fought only to advance. 
Our arms were everywhere successful. Early was rudely 
helped out of the Shenandoah by Sheridan, who left the 
harvests of that fertile valley, the granary of Virginia, 
smouldering ash heaps. Lee, at Richmond, was at last 
in Grant's firm grasp, from which no enemy ever escaped. 
Sherman had swept down from the mountains to the sea, 
everywhere burning what cotton he could not. transport, 
and with torch and levelling ax, had, in the language of his 
famous foraging order, " enforced a devastation more or 
less relentless, according to the measure of hostility shown 
by the inhabitants." Savannah had fallen, and Charleston 
in turn, as he swept through the Carolinas, leaving 
Columbia in flames as he passed. Then it was, that the 



23 

rebellion, hungry and worn out, began to understand that 
in provoking war it had verily, 

" Tempted the fury of his three attendants : 
Lean famine, quartering steel and climbing- fire." 

But the rebel armies still held out, and the southern 
people still clung to a cause that had really been doomed 
since July 4th, 1863. The Lieutenant General, however, 
was at last ready, and without going into particulars, 
which would reflect a full share of glory upon Vermont 
troops, let it suffice that Grant closed the war, as Napoleon 
did the campaign at Austerlitz, " with a clap of thunder." 
Lee surrendered April 9th; Johnston, the 14th; Dick 
Taylor, the 19th which was immediately followed by the 
rebel navy under Commodore Farrand and Kirby Smith's 
army, in Texas. Thus, like a dissolving view, the rebel- 
lion suddenly vanished into thin air ; and those who were 
left of the 2,688,523 men, who, at the call of their 
country, had come forth from peaceful vocations and 
devoted themselves, with such singular energy, to the 
havoc and waste of war, nearly as suddenly, glided back 
again to a pursuit of the arts of peace ; one of the most 
sublime spectacles in the history of the world. These 
men had fought not for glory or gain, neither for ambition 
of their own, or that of prince or ru!er, but for the integ- 
rity and perpetuity of the Union and for the freedom of 
men. They had left 400,000 of their comrades, 5,000 
and more of whom were from Vermont, on the field, who 
had bravely met death in some one of the many revolting 
forms incident to war. Left a sacrifice for the sins of 
the nation ; the price of liberty to a race — 

" Four hundred thousand men, 

The brave, the good, the true. 

In tangled wood, in mountain glen, 

On battle plain, in prison pen, 

Lie dead, for me and you ; 

Four hundred thousand of the brave 

Have made our ransomed soil their grave. 

For me and you, kind friends, 

For me and you." 



24 

And who can compass the grief or fathom the sorrow 
which, for them, has since everywhere brooded over the 
land ; and which, at their mention, still leaves the eye 
moist and the voice choked. Their ashes are sacred, and 
any eulogium which even the most finished eloquence 
can offer, in their praise, is utterly futile. Words of mine 
are certainly too feeble; and I can only say in the 
language of another : 

" Take them, O, God, our brave. 
The glad fulfillerii of thy dread decree ; 
Who grasped the sword, for peace. 

And smote to save, 
And, dying for freedom, Lord, died for thee." 

Let us, then, turn from the dead to the living ; to those 
who were fondly leaning upon the arm of these strong 
men stricken down in defense of their country ; to 
dependent woman, to decrepit age and helpless infancy. 
These, the wards of the nation, must be, — already are 
amply provided for, and must never be neglected. Those 
too, in our midst, sad reminders of the shock of battle, 
with an arm or a leg shot away, or still suffering from 
disease unchecked or wounds unhealed, are equally objects 
of tenderest care and solicitude. These last are still with 
us, and long may they survive, to stir with their mute 
appeals, the heart of our busy, thoughtless milUons, with 
a constant response to the pleading lines of the Scottish 
bard — 

" Th« brave po'^r soldier ne'er despise, 

Nor count him as a stranger ; 
Reme'riher he was his c'outitry's stay, 

In day and hour of danger.' 

Let all '^remember " this, now that the danger is passed, 
and anxiety and fear no longer act as spurs upon the 
flank of drowsy gratitude — now, that, 

'• Grim vi^agred war hath smoothed his wrinkled front, 

And — instead of mounting barbed steeds, 

To fright the pouli of fearful adversaries, 

The soldier's arms are hung up as monuments; 

His stern alarums changed to merry meetings, 

His dreadful marcheB to delightful measurea." 



25 

But here, I am admonished that my hour is passed, and 
that I must detain you only a moment longer. I cannot 
however, help adverting to some of the first fruits of the 
peace, and to the glorious future of the Union, which we 
now enjoy. The one achieved, and the other preserved, 
through your valor. Who can contemplate without a 
thankful heart, the rich heritage of civil and religious 
liberty which a kind Providence has vouchsafed us '? 
"Who too, who loves his country, and loves the race can, 
without emotion, cast his eye down the future of this 
vast ocean bound republic ; hereafter, to be in fact, what 
it has heretofore only been in name, the land of liberty, 
with no crouching slave in all our broad domain 1 Who, 
too, can calculate the salutary effects of our example, the 
magnetic influence of which, was felt in every quarter of 
the globe, the moment the flag of treason went down 
and again, as of old — 

" These thirty and odd States, confederate ia one, 
Held their starry stations around the western sun." 

I say it was felt everywhere. Napoleon, quailing 
before the bristling bayonets of our half million veterans, 
who had just quelled the greatest rebellion which the 
world ever saw, said, in reply to a little note from our 
premier, give me a little time and I will get out of Mexico 
— and he did ; and the result was in a few months all 
that was left of the Mexican Empire, was carefully 
embalmed and sent back to Europe, from whence it came 
— and Maxmillian, the Arch Duke and Emperor, sleeps 
with his fathers ; his untimely and violent death furnish- 
ing ambitious princes a wholesome warning, that on this 
continent at least, there is no right divine in a crown. — 
Not only this but the masses throughout Europe read in 
the re-establishment of our Union their own deliverance ; 
4 



26 

and breaking away from the traditions of centuries at 
once raised the standard of reform. 

In England, through the necessary concessions of Crown 
and Parliament, the right of suffrage was extended, but 
this failed to check the liberal wage, which, in its flood, 
has since swept away two Tory administrations, and at 
last placed a Gladstone at the head of the British Ministry. 

The Scandinavian north too, our ancestral land, felt the 
thrill of our victory. Germany, no longer willing to 
brook Austrian despotism, welcomed Prussian interven- 
tion ; and when the famous quadrilateral yielded, it was 
a triumph, no less for German freedom than for the genius 
of Bismarck. But what is still more noteworthy, Austria 
herself in turn, seeing that the world really does move, 
is emulating, even outrunning her neighbors in liberal 
legislation, which always means liberty for the people. 
Italy, in the German-Italian war, won for herself all that 
Germany did, and again in 1867, rallying under her 
Garibaldi, dealt a blow at the supremacy of the church, 
in temporal affairs, which at once awoke the feeble, 
incoherent mutterings of the Vatican, and started the 
Pope's Nuncios, post haste, for the Emperor of the French ; 
who, once a Republican, now wields an iron ceptre, and 
is a standing apologist for tyranny. Almost the only 
monarch in Europe whose government has not responded 
to the triumph of liberty in this. But in France the early 
dissolution of the Empire is looked for in the threatened 
dissolution of the Emperor ; after which, if the signs of 
the times may be trusted, the liberty-loving, enthusiastic 
Frenchmen will make another attempt at the establish- 
ment of civil liberty ; and let us hope a successful one. 

Spain, also, once the pioneer of all that was bold, 
aggressive and civilizing, but for these last hundred years 



27 

and more, given over to ignorance, vice and bigotry, has, 
at last awoke from her degradation and imbecility, and 
through the sword of Prim, and the trumpet tongue of 
Caste] lar, is inaugurating an era of social and political 
reform ; not an unimportant feature of which, is the 
sending away the profligate and dissolute Isabella, and 
the saying to the world, we have done with the Bourbons. 
Cuba, too, sitting beneath the shadow of our institutions, 
too near to withstand their influence, stimulated by our 
example, and copying the lesson of the mother country, 
asks to be free. These, comrades, are some of the effects 
of your late victory upon the struggling millions, through- 
out the world, who are panting for free institutions. But 
who shall compute, for the ages, the blessings of that 
victory, not only abroad but at home ; and who shall 
measure its effect upon the future of our own country ? 
It should be remembered that we are but in our infancy ; 
only 93 years old. Greece saw a thousand years, and 
Rome 1200 before the " Goth and Vandall thundered at 
her gates ;" 

"And massacre sealed her eternal night." 

Proportioned only to our youth is our present greatness. 
Who shall tell the future under our regenerated constitu- 
tion ? As the shock of great battles usually arouses the 
natural elements, and the roar of artillery is, after a little, 
answered by the artillery of the clouds, which is followed 
by the cool refreshing shower, always so grateful to the 
wounded and weary combatants j so great wars almost 
invariably arouse to new vigor the energies of man, and 
when peace finally comes, the civilization which succeeds, 
is always higher and better than the one which went 
before. If war destroys, it also creates. If it exhausts, 
it likewise makes strong. All know how the crusades, 



28 

which for two centuries agitated Europe and left her in 
titter prostration, were followed by the revival of letters? 
which, four hundred years before, were buried beneath 
that barbarian avalanche from the north ; were also closely 
followed by Wickliffe, " the morning star of the reforma- 
tion," who rose out of the dark night of that middle period, 
asserting the freedom of conscience, and the emancipation 
of mankind from the Papal See was begun. — And, if the 
reaction which followed the terribly depressing effects of 
the holy wars, lifted Europe out of mediaeval barbarism ; 
what triumphs in art and literature, in religion, in law and 
in liberty, may we not look for in this new era of the 
republic; with every impulse of our teeming millions 
quickened by the heroic, energizing influences of the late 
war? Let us not, however, lose sight of the duties of 
the present in any dazzling vision of the future. 

Let us, rather, remember that upon each succeeding 
generation, and now upon this generation, is devolved 
the high work of preserving and transmitting unimpaired 
our matchless institutions ; and if our opportunities and 
privileges are great, in exact proportion also are our respon- 
sibilities. Let us, therefore, for the work still before us, 
gather wisdom from the past, and inspiration and courage 
from the present ; and, like Varro, whose fidelity to Rome 
nothing could shake, and who, in Rome's greatest trial 
when the stoutest faltered, " did not despair of the com- 
monwealth," let us, whether soldiers or citizens, never 
waver in devotion to our country and the flag ; the proud 
old flag — no less proud to-night, as here it hangs in 
peaceful folds, than when flung to the breeze, amid the 
thunder and hail of battle it beckoned you on to victory. 
And though every conceivable disaster and peril overtake 
the republic, let us never lose faith in the union of these 



29 

States ; so lately assailed, but through your valor preserved, 
and cemented anew with your blood and sufferings, and 
the blood and sufferings of your comrades, both the living 
and the dead — not idly vaunting the glories of that Union, 
nor blindly asserting its perpetuity ; but trusting to the 
republican doctrines of equality and self-government, and 
to the intelligence and virtue of the people; let us, 
comrades, under that union, strive to make the moral and 
intellectual grandeur of the Republic equal to its material 
greatness. Then, without arrogance, and with no disre- 
gard of the laws of national life and longevity, can we 
express the hope, that no poet, of this, or any future age, 
may stand amid the ruins of this country, and ask of us, as 
Byron did of Greece, when he drew his sword in defence 
of religion and liberty in that classic but degenerate land : 

" Shrine of the mighty, can it be, 
That this ia all that's left of thee ?" 



1 ■ y 

i 




) i.; A:T-: 


L :n 




SQ^MW 


' YERMONT. OEFICERS, 


IIKPKESENTATIVES' HALL, 


MOATrELlEll.n..!r, , ,; ^' 

■ ■ 1 


November 4. 


, 1869. 


\ . By^(;i:x. WILLIAM 

■ - •^' • * ;-' \!;Tm\, 

1 


W. GR' 


,-m -- - - • ■ 


- , ' i 



